Women in Translation Month: Book Reviews

Hello everybody! I’m so excited to be penning down my thoughts regarding 2 books I read for Women in Translation month! 2020 has been a total crap year but one of the good things that has come out of this is how my reading choices have become so diverse. From consuming mainly fantasy and romantic comedies to consciously picking up books out of my comfort zones and immensely enjoying literary fiction and non-fiction (WHO IS THIS PERSON?!), I’ve come quite a long way. This, I feel has been a direct result of the bookstagrammers I follow and interact with.

Ok, *rubs palms*, so without any further ado, lets get into the reviews!

Book Reviews

Name: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Author: Cho Nam-Joo
Translator: Jamie Chang
Pages: 176
Publisher: Simon & Schuster India

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Kim Ji-young is the most common name for Korean women born in the 1980s.
Kim Ji-young is representative of her generation.

This book is the story of nearly ( I don’t want to include those who wouldn’t want to be) every woman in South Korea and to much extent, everywhere in the world. In just about 170 pages, the books packs in a lot of things, especially with regards to gender inequality in South Korea. In the modern age, are we truly modern?

This is not a light-hearted book, even though it’s a very short one: it will make you furious and might make you scream, pardon my French, “THE FUCK WHAT NOW”. The world is such an unfair place and when people say bullshit like, “We DoN’t NeEd FeMiNiSM AnYmOrE” or “FeMiNaZi”, I legit wanna slap them. If you are female, it just might break your heart. In this highly impactful novella, supplied with footnotes containing actual data, you just might see a part of yourself reflected or even someone you might now, who gave up their dreams to raise a family because the society said so.

“Jiyoung became different people from time to time. Some of them were living, others were dead, all of them women she knew. No matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t a joke or a prank. Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person.”

We start in the present with Kim Jiyoung acting in an unconventional manner, who is then taken to a male psychiatrist, to be diagnosed with what ails her. But with the gender biases prevailing, can the doctor actually cure her?

After that, we jump into her backstory. Kim Jiyoung grew up in a middle class family with 3 siblings, where boys were given the utmost importance and in a time where sex selective abortion i.e., female infanticide was considered the norm, “as if daughter was a medical problem”.

“Jiyoung grew up being told to be cautious, to dress conservatively, to be “ladylike.” That it’s your job to avoid dangerous places, times of day and people. It’s your fault for not noticing and not avoiding.”

We see Kim growing up and going to school, an institution of learning with the responsibility of protecting its students, whose teachers and male students behave lecherously and are always on lookout for any opportunity to paw at the female students and sexualize them with their gaze. They blamed the girls and their clothes, for tempting men, as if women were responsible that men couldn’t control their urges and molested them. We see the arbitrary way in which the uniform system was implemented and just how much it controlled females while males were free to wear whatever they wanted to because they “couldn’t sit still for 10 minutes between classes” and were more “physically active” than their female counterparts.

“Boys are like that. They are meaner to the girls they like.”

Just how many times have you heard this line? I hate how movies have normalized it and made it a trope, setting an example for boys to behave callously towards someone they apparently “like”.

What I really liked was how the book took up the topic of menstruation, which is hardly ever mentioned in books I generally read, as if women in Fantasies don’t have periods. The taboo around menstruation is what perpetuates shame in most girls.

“You’re right. In a world where doctors can cure cancer and do heart transplants, there isn’t a single pill to treat menstrual cramps.’ Her sister pointed at her own stomach. ‘The world wants our uterus to be drug-free. Like sacred grounds in a virgin forest.”

Coming to Kim’s career, we see her in a testosterone fuelled and a totally non-accommodating for women work environment, with the high amount of sense of entitlement male employees have along with deep rooted sexism and misogyny. We see a lack of women in high positions and also a lack of opportunities provided to women and the severe pay gap between the sexes.

“All he wanted was to quietly close this case: It’ll ruin this company’s reputation if word gets around in the field. The accused male employees have families and parents to protect, too. Do you really want to destroy people’s lives like this? Do you want people to find out that your pictures are out there? These obviously self-serving words of absurdity flew out of the mouth of the director, who was considered to be progressive and sensible compared to his peers.”

This quote is from the part which was just so nauseating and every women’s worse nightmare in public spaces like washrooms or trial rooms- Are there any cameras inside here? Read this book to find out what happened.

The book emphasised on the society’s obsession with a women’s sacred responsibility of raising her kids and taking care of the family, which was possible only by virtue of sacrificing their own dreams and aspirations. It also raised the paradoxical situation where the woman finally leaves her job to raise her family but is referred to as someone living off of her husband.

When and where does it stop? Writing this review as been exhausting, revisiting all the bookmarks I made, just so I could give an accurate description and in hopes to convince you to pick it up asap.

This book doesn’t beat around the bush and the author doesn’t mince any words; it’s straight and brutal and a must read. So grateful that the translator has done such a wonderful job, retaining the essence of the book so wonderfully! 🙌🏻

There’s also a movie on it so I’ll track that down!

Name: Fever Dream
Author: Samanta Schweblin
Translator: Megan Mcdowell
Pages: 150-190 (Bit confused)
Publisher: Oneworld

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He’s not her child.

This is a short, compulsive, unsettling, weird read, with a sense of dread looming with every page you turn. It explores multiple themes with an unreliable narrator, who strays while recounting what really happened on her vacation, to a kid, David, who brings her back to point, mentioning details which are relevant and which aren’t. I’m still thinking about this absolute mindfuck novel! 🤯

I finished it in one setting and would suggest others to do so too.

A fever dream is a term used to describe vivid dreams you have when your body temperature is elevated. For many people, these dreams can be disturbing and unpleasant.

Amanda, a dying and a highly unreliable narrator, tells David, a kid, the story of the past few days which resulted in the present. We’ve a small town with parents with a desperate hunger to save their children from whatever harm that may come their way and to go to extreme lengths to do so, including, well, here it gets very magical realistic & I won’t reveal since it can be construed as a spoiler. The protagonist, Amanda, keeps measuring the “rescue distance” with which she gauges the distance her daughter, Nina, is away from her, which includes, how much time it will take Amanda to reach Nina, if something befalls her.

This interesting story, again a short and impactful read, deals with the harmful effects of human activities on the environment which is killing us in turn only, for eg. here, the children are being affected by poison from pesticides that seeps into the ground level water.

“Why do we have to go so quickly, David? Is there so little time left?”

The pace and my heart rate keeps going up as this short story progresses, making it feel like a ticking time bomb.

It’s a disturbing book, with a terrifying premise, will leave you with food for though. The ending left me with my eyes wide open and jaw nearly touching the floor (not all the way down unfortunately), it did leave something to be desired, so I wasn’t completely satisfied with it.

Have you read any of these? Do you plan to? What are some translated works you read this month or even before? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, Ciao!